TONY SNOW

May 24, 1997|TONY SNOW Detroit News

It has become impossible as a political matter to disentangle China's human-rights record from its economic relations with the United States. Not only is China the only nation for which Congress annually must re-authorize most-favored-nation trade status, the renewal date comes on June 3 - just three days before the anniversary of the 1991 massacre at Tiananmen Square.

This coincidence works to China's disadvantage. Even though it boasts the world's most rapidly growing economy, the Worker's Paradise still resembles Purgatory when it comes to basic liberties.

- If dissidents speak their minds, for instance, military authorities jail them on trumped-up charges of jeopardizing national security.

- Population cops force mothers to abort when they have conceived "surplus" children. The government serves as the sole arbiter of "choice," deciding who lives, who dies, who is "wanted."

- On matters of faith, the feudal superpower grants sporadic and token permission for congregants to practice the religion of their choice, and it has been known to oppress Christians and devotees of the Dalai Lama with Herod-like flair.

- Worker's rights are fictional. Chinese laborers in some industries work slave hours for slave wages.

- And there's the matter of adventurism. China has sold ballistic-missile technology to Iran, Syria and North Korea; ships and submarines to Iran; and biochemical agents to Syria, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. And it reportedly has exported fissionable nuclear material to North Korea and Pakistan.

These unflattering facts have inspired a growing movement to strip China of its MFN status, which lets Chinese goods enter the country saddled with the lowest possible tariffs.

China has abetted this crusade by giving its detractors a politician's best friend: great visuals and a boatload of heart-tugging horror stories. While opponents have at their disposal the testimony of Harry Wu and pictures of the massacre at Tiananmen Square, the president carries into his pro-MFN battle little more than the dull claim that commerce helps lure medieval kingdoms into modernity.

The real debate over MFN concerns means, not ends. Both sides want to see the Chinese embrace liberal democratic principles and institutions. The question is whether one can better achieve this goal by applying the lash or adopting an attitude of patience.

Common sense suggests forbearance. As a nation moves out of agrarian backwardness, it develops a middle class that defines its core values and propels it toward greater commercial heights. The moment members of that class can take for granted the necessities of life, they begin to demand amenities - the first of which is liberty. Prosperity almost always precedes democracy.

China's ripe. It generated a gross domestic product of $816 billion last year, and its average urban dweller earned about $525. (Agricultural workers netted a "record high" of $226.) But China's economy has been growing at an annual rate of about 10 percent in recent years, meaning the nation should, within a decade or two, have something akin to a middle class.

If we hike tariffs, we won't help struggling workers. We'll lengthen their long march to affluence. We'll also offend the Beijing government, which will express its displeasure by buying goods from other trading partners - and perhaps selling even more doomsday stuff to very bad people around the world.

Clinton has the arguments on his side. His political problem is that laborite Democrats and opportunistic Republicans want to stall MFN. Laborites have reprised the protectionist arguments they used against the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. They say workers don't make enough money. Yet, as NAFTA has shown, the best way to remedy that situation is to increase trade, not cut it off.

At the same time, Republicans who were stalwart free-traders during the Reagan-Bush years now sound like Sons of Gephardt. In many cases, this reversal represents a triumph of convenience over conscience: Wounded GOP leaders think they can hand Clinton a mortifying defeat. So they've put their principles on hold for the sake of a political win.

A generation ago, congressional politicians honored the maxim that partisanship ought to stop at the water's edge. But this time around, an odd Democratic-Republican alliance wants to make foreign policy hostage to disparate domestic concerns.

Despite the fact that the Chinese government tried to corrupt and purchase his political party during the 1996 campaign, Clinton has acquitted himself honorably in this fight. Nothing has happened in the world since Republicans left the White House to change the fact that prosperity not only ensures individual liberty, it also tames the savage beast, giving nations a reason to see the world as a collection of potential partners, rather than unconquered enemies.